Georgia O'Keefe, who painted the record holder for price paid at auction for an artwork by a female artist. (commons.wikimedia.org)

TRANSCRIPT:

​ I am shy to admit that, in my more recent past, I have often referred to graphic design as “making art for the Man.” Graphic design was “selling out” – it was losing your creative freedom, your voice, your bohemian artist lifestyle. But as I come into my junior year of college, it is dawning on me that it is usually necessary to create art for “the Man” if you want your art to be your main source of income, whether you are a graphic designer or not. When I started thinking about art and money, I started noticing the invisible web that navigates through ideas of art and class. This web also weaves its way through gender, which led me to the title of this episode: Women, Art, and Social Class. Social class has more of an impact on art than many are comfortable acknowledging. Art critic Ben Davis explored this connection in his essay 9.5 Theses on Art and Class. Davis begins by pointing out what seems obvious to him: “Class is an issue of fundamental importance to art” (27). He even acknowledges the public’s discomfort when it comes to relating the two. The label of “the art world,” he asserts, is just a way of trying to separate art from issues like social class (27). If art is in its own world – that is, if it exists in a bubble, as many people would like to think – then outside social factors cannot affect it. Unfortunately, this has never been the case. Davis also states that the upper classes of our capitalist society, because they “control” the hegemonic values of our culture, also determine what is of value in art (28). This is also unfortunate, but when you look back into art history, it is difficult to be surprised. From the Renaissance on, the rich patrons that could afford to hire artists have determined the monetary value of art. Although in the modern era it seems to be subtler than it was when wealthy European nobles and religious figures ordered around artists such as Rubens and Van Eyck, the influence exerted by the upper classes today is comparable.
Interestingly, though art often caters primarily to the ruling class, most people working in art are middle class (Davis 28). The working class, on the other hand, has “weak relations” to the world of visual art (Davis 29). This is somewhat ironic, because the middle class world of art, which is dominated by the middle class idea of art as self expression but actually governed by ruing class values, is often centered around the working class manual labor required to produce art (Davis 30). Because art is closely tied to class, and class is related to gender, we must explore how class relates to gender in order to see the relationship among all three.
Women’s economic status differs from that of men. In every single ethnic and racial group, women are poorer than men (Cawthorne). The push toward “pink-collar” jobs relegates women to specific jobs, such as teaching and childcare, and these women-dominated fields pay less (Cawthorne). Women also do more unpaid caregiving, as they are often responsible for caring for children and the elderly (Cawthorne). Honestly, if you live in the USA and you don’t live under a rock, you probably know these things. It is unfortunate but true that last year in 2015 women made 79 cents for every dollar a man made, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy research (“Pay Equity & Discrimination”). In short, our society has class issues, our class issues have gender issues, and both of these issues heavily affect art.
This is a very complicated subject that this brief podcast will not be able to cover completely. It has aspects that are even deeper and more intricate than what I have explained here and tried to make as concise as possible. But this episode has connections to all past episodes and all future episodes. Exploring class explains so much about women in art, and in the short time we have in this podcast, I will discuss only a few of these connections. First, it is difficult to make time for art when society expects you to be the caretaker of your family. In 2013, women spent six hours more on housework per week than men, and three hours more caring for children (Jayson). Women do not get paid for this work, and when a woman has less money, time spent on artwork and in the art world is limited. Women’s artwork is also viewed as less valuable monetarily. Georgia O’Keefe’s painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 was sold at auction for over $35 million, making it the record holder for price paid at auction for an artwork by a female artist. $35 million, however, is not even close to $179.4 million, the auction price of Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger (“Get the Facts”). It is discouraging for women who want to be artists that not only are they not represented as extensively as men, but also not valued as highly. When a woman does break into the art world, she realizes what everyone else does: regardless of gender – the value of art is determined by the ruling class, and making art for “the Man” is often a necessary evil.
Thus, as long as there is class disparity in art, it will remain especially difficult for women to excel in art. Social class determines what kind of art is valued and whose art is valued, and women’s art is almost always accorded less esteem and value than men’s. In other words, it’s always hard to be a woman when you are working for “the Man.”

Works Cited

Cawthorne, Alexandra. "The Straight Facts on Women in Poverty." Center for American Progress. Center for American Progress, 8 Oct. 2008. Web. 14 July 2016. <https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/report/2008/10/08/5103/the-straight-facts-on-women-in-poverty/>.

Davis, Ben. 9.5 Theses on Art and Class. , 2013. Internet resource.

"Get the Facts." National Museum of Women in the Arts. National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2014. Web. 14 July 2016. <http://www.nmwa.org/advocate/get-facts>.